Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

Originally Posted by mozilla

All right....Here is the big boy. The whole enchilada...
notice the rail road bridge crossing the river. What river was that Dave?

Jeff and everyone else it is the Schuylkill River that runs from up state pa all the way to Phila. Kinsey sat on a Penisula on the river in Linfield Pa The Picture comes from a old Broshure that was titled ( The Place With Space Linfield Industrial Park 200 million Sq feet of space! the year was 1985 Spring the next year it Kinsey was abandon!
Dave Z!

Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

Originally Posted by mozilla

There are two DSP #'s for the Kinsey operation. These pic's are of DSP#10. It was used for their rye distilling, IIRC. Dave will be able to fill in the blanks.

These are Pictures of DSP #10 Kinsey Rye this is the oldest of the still buildings and was a barn with all the stuff to make Rye Whiskey if you look at my Kinsey Wooden Whiskey case you can see #10 scrached on it in Pencile of some sort. It took me a while till I noticed that on the case on the top says botteld 1909.
It was When Kinsey used the Name Angelo Myers why I have no Idea but the man who gave me the case was a geneolist and he searched for a long time and he found the name Angelo Myers Whiskey but that no person of that name exsisted at that time weird. Wish I could ask old J G himself!
Dave

Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room things sitting

One other thing I wonder is that some apparently valuable pieces of equipment (those holding tanks for example, the trucks 20 years ago) must have had some value.

When a business is liquidated, normally the equipment is sold, even for salvage it would have had value.

Why I wonder would so much of it have remained in place?

Also, who owns the site now, is it known?

Gary

Gary it is a long story but here is what Happened Publicker stopped Distilling Drinking Alcohol in 1979 they shut down Kinsey for a bit then reopened bottling Antifreeze and Industrial chemicals. then in 1982 to get some money to keep them going they sold the place to a Man named Eugene Ostreicher from New York with the agreement that they would lease the Bottling house, the tanks and a couple of the warehouses to store stuff they had not gotten rid of. Well they went for 4 more years and even were trying to become like P&G buying companys that made home cleaning products. For a bit it looked like they would make it then in 1986 people went home one Friday night came back Monday to find they were out of Bussiness. The very next day they called all the people and gave them severance pay ASAP. Then they sold their distillerys in Phila to Overland Wrecking for 3 Million dollars ground that was worth 30 Million cleaned up! They had them sign a agreement that they would by buying it at such a low price clean the place up so that Publicker could take what cash they had left and buy Brightstar Flashlight company! Overland caught the place on fire hurrying in the cleanup went into Bankrupsey and The Epa made Publicker pay for the cleanup even though they had done the right thing. Meanwhile Ostreicher just suddenly closed the place shut down the Boilers and just left it rot for all these years. If you type his name in you will find that he built a building in NY that fell down and killed someone due to shoddy work. He was charging them way more then he had promised and they just plain walked away and all these years he has left this wonderful and historic place go to Hell. Just lately the DEP had sued him for around $400,000 dollars for not taking ground samples and for letting the place go to Hell. After it was to late Publicker had wished they had not let him talk them into buying it but there was a hostil try to take over the company by some Lawyers who bought so much common stock that they finally got on the board and were the ones with the bright idea to sell Kinsey and then to quit the industry, and to sell Kinsey in that deal as he was a friend of the Lawyers one being the Late David Cohn from Phila
This is about the best I can do to explain it a very sad story Kinsey when I worked they had 600 people working there.
Dave Z

Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

This sounds like a complicated story and I am sure everyone involved has their view on what happened and why, anyway I was just wondering in general about it.

I enjoy your reminiscences of the days you worked there and the pictures, thanks again for those.

Gary

Gary one more thing and you right the whole thing is and was very complicated. The picture of the truck was in 2002 it is long gone now. Also Publicker sold all their trucks including the old Mack Fire truck to the junk yard in 1986 except for a couple including the old Mack B-61. The outfit that said it was going to turn the place into a Propane power Plant in 2002 never ended up buying it and just mostly took stuff for cash leaving everything in more ruin after they told people they were fixing all the buildings up. They tore the old still down just to cash in the metal around 2003 the people told the township they did not want anymore Power plants in Limerick as the Nuclear one is enough. So they took all they could and walked out.
Still it Kills me seeing the old girl in such shape and Mr Neuman would turn over in his grave if he saw it now!
BE WELL Gary
Dave Z

Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

Originally Posted by mozilla

These are the last of the pictures I have received from Dave. I hope non are duplicates....

The pictures are as follows #1. The tree that I mulched when I was a Kid working the yard gang
#2. Warehouses they have now cut the weeds
#3. Building J Ice on it #4. 120 gal Barrel building L#5.Dump trough that still has screens in it Building L#6Terometer on wall of Elevator in Building L you could turn up the heat in all the buildings when you were in there.#7. Stalagmits on the floor of Building L#8Stalagtites on roof in building L#9Building #38 two tanks for blending all the way at the end of the plant. Note windows on each end to bring in light at dawn and dusk!These pictures were taken on Sat Feb 16, 2008